A Young Woman's Heart

The entire ceiling is made of tempered glass, and there is a lawn next to the glass. On a clear day, you can see the starry night sky directly.

However, Mo Xiaoxiao and Mo Zhuyou don't usually have much time to dance or exercise, so this place is used as an activity room on rainy days. They also occasionally come here to sleep at night. Although there are wooden planks, they are not as soft as a bed, so they don't come here to sleep very often.

However, when it's crowded and lively, the two sisters—especially the younger sister—are still very happy to squeeze into the spacious activity room with everyone.

Starlight shone on Mo Xueyao's face, making her fair cheeks glow like stars.

"Youyou, you didn't dry your hair again?" Mo Xiaoxiao unusually adopted an older sister's demeanor, leaning against the wall and gazing at her.

"Blow, blow!"

"Why is it still so wet?"

"It's drying too slowly!"

"There's no rush to do anything."

"Then I can wrap myself in a towel, right?" Mo Zhuyou ran back to the washroom with a 'thump thump thump' and then ran back with a 'thump thump thump', clearly without even wearing slippers, and went back and forth barefoot.

When she returned, she had a dry towel wrapped around her head, making her look like a woman from a desert country.

"La la la~" As if she had found a loophole in the game, Mo Zhuyou hummed a little tune with great joy and sat down next to Mo Xueyao.

Mo Xueyao remembers that when she was a child, you could see vast stretches of stars in Hangzhou.

The city streets weren't that bright back then.

The dim streetlights couldn't dispel the darkness, and inexplicable arguments or murmurs could always be heard in the alleyways on the street corners.

Even in Banshan, Hangzhou is slowly being developed. At night, the shops are all closed, but the streetlights still illuminate the entire road, stretching into the distance.

The city center is even more dazzling, with colorful neon lights turning it into daytime.

However, the starlight in the countryside seems to prove that the night sky has not changed; only the city has changed.

Falling asleep under the starlight, how romantic.

But if you actually let people live in the countryside, you'll find that besides being closer to nature, there are many, many inconveniences.

"There seem to be a lot of stars tonight." Mo Zhuyou scratched Mo Xueyao's nose with her wet hair, causing the latter to sneeze.

"Achoo!" Mo Xueyao laughed and nudged her. "Think about it, these starlights come from galaxies hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of light-years away, or even further away. Ah... it's a pity we can never cross such a long distance."

“Light is lonely.” Li Wanyan nodded gently.

Traveling through the dark space of the universe and bringing light in all directions.

“But we’re not alone!” Mo Zhuyou seemed very happy about this. “You know, you know, actually, my sister and I didn’t really make friends until high school!”

"Huh? Why?" Mo Xueyao couldn't imagine what kind of life it was for the two sisters to rely on each other for the entire three years of junior high school, with no other friends to share their feelings with...

"Because although it wasn't a very expensive private school—that's where I originally went, but I switched to a top-tier public junior high school—the students there all came from relatively well-off families..."

“Prosperous?” Mo Xueyao used a rather literary term.

"Yes, that's right, so we didn't have much in common. Besides, my sister and I were already doing everything we could to survive. We would go to work after school every day, go home and fall asleep as soon as we got home, and then rush to school in the morning. If we had any homework, we would have to finish it in the morning..."

"Wow, that's so hard. It must be difficult to maintain those grades, right?"

Li Wanyan nodded gently, deeply sympathizing with the two sisters' past circumstances.

In such an environment, it's not easy to maintain one's individuality.

"Yes, otherwise, even though those families are all relatively wealthy, we wouldn't be without anything to talk about."

"By the way, aren't there any others in similar situations to yours?"

"At least not in our class."

Mo Xiaoxiao sighed deeply: "At least we got through those days."

She laughed as she spoke; I wonder if she's always been this cheerful.

But he definitely laughs more than his sister. Perhaps every time he laughs, he's giving his sister the strength to keep living.

"Originally, I wasn't going to finish high school, but... I'm still a little afraid of actually entering the workforce." Mo Zhuyou fidgeted with her fingers, seemingly a little embarrassed. "So I still want to continue my studies... and my sister can stay with me too."

Hearing such heavy memories left Mo Xueyao at a loss for words, so she changed the subject: "Oh, by the way, did you buy that telescope?"

“Xiaoxue brought that,” Mo Xiao smiled, “She was here looking at the stars.”

"This guy is really... um, is he being romantic, or just enjoying himself? He can't possibly be actually doing research, can he?"

"Maybe they really are doing research." Mo Zhuyou hopped around like a rabbit and ran to the telescope again. "Xiao Yao, want to try it? You can see the moon from here! You can see the craters on it! It's pretty clear!"

"The moon... we've seen enough of it in textbooks. Can we see Mars? And Saturn's rings and stuff?"

"It is possible—but it doesn't seem very clear."

Mo Xueyao became interested, and with a quick movement, she sprang up and knelt down next to the long astronomical telescope with Mo Zhuyou: "How do we look? How do we look?"

"Hmph, you can't believe it, can you? I'll teach you. You start by..."

"Wanyan, shall we go take a look together?" The older sister smiled and looked at Li Wanyan.

"Ah."

The four of them gathered around the telescope. Seemingly worried that their knees would hurt from kneeling, Mo Xiaoxiao thoughtfully brought over pillows for them to rest on.

"Huh? What? Ah, a pillow? Is that okay?" Mo Xueyao looked down at Mo Xiaoxiao, who was stuffing a pillow under her knees, and asked in confusion.

"No problem!" Mo Zhuyou exclaimed loudly from the side, "Anyway, I've already taken a nice bath, so it's fine to put my feet on the pillow. I do that all the time—in winter~"

"Youyou—" Mo Xiaoxiao flicked her forehead helplessly.

Although I've seen countless clear photos of the moon in textbooks, the feeling is different from seeing it with a telescope.

At that moment, the moon seemed to come alive.

The cratered, uneven mountain range is faintly visible.

Saturn appears as a bright pearl in a black river, with only the outer rings barely visible; no further details are discernible.

When you look at the night sky from Earth, the stars appear so densely packed.

However, when viewed through a telescope, it is discovered that they are actually separated by a vast distance.

The universe is not dazzling at all; pitch-black silence is the theme most of the time.

Mo Xueyao suddenly felt that even the universe was no longer beautiful.

It felt like I came with high hopes but left disappointed.

Perhaps her love for the starry sky was just a case of feigning interest in something when she actually did it.

In fact, if the lights hanging in the night sky were replaced with colorful neon lights, she would still think they looked pretty good and like them just the same.

"Cuckoo-"

The hooting of owls occasionally echoed through the mountains and forests, and Mo Xueyao lay back down in the same spot as before.

Mo Xiaoxiao had already made the bed, so you could sleep anytime you wanted.

"Why aren't you watching anymore?"

"It's boring."

"Pfft!" Mo Xiaoxiao couldn't help but cover her mouth, her eyes curving like crescent moons. "That's what Xiaoxue said when she taught Youyou to look at the stars last time."

"No way! I can appreciate the deathly silence of the universe!"

"Isn't that what Xiaoxue said?"

"Cough!"

The brief silence seemed to be brewing something funny, and a few seconds later, all three of them couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Li Wanyan looked at them calmly, seemingly unable to understand what was so funny.

Perhaps it wasn't the event itself that made them laugh.

I just found it fun to be together with everyone, having fun and joking around, so much so that I wanted to laugh.

"Well, I think we should talk about something interesting on such a nice evening!"

"What do you want to talk about?" Mo Xueyao moved the pillow that had been under her knees behind her head, adjusted to a comfortable position, and used her toes to pull the blanket next to her over. "Ghost stories?"

"That's Lele's hobby."

“Lele is so timid, yet she always likes to talk about these things.”

"It's as strange as someone who can't eat spicy food but still really likes it, right?"

“That’s right!” Mo Xueyao nodded vigorously.

Mo Xiaoxiao picked up a few strands of hair that had fallen from the girls' heads and threw them into the trash can outside. Her voice drifted over: "How about we tell you a fairy tale?"

"Fairy tales...? How do you tell them?"

"Let the older sister demonstrate first!"

"The story of the Little Mermaid? Or Snow White or something?"

"No, it wasn't! It was made up on the spot!"

"That powerful?"

"It's just a fairy tale that's like a diary entry." The older sister sat down with a smile. "Well... it starts from everyday life, like when you fall asleep at night, the toys in the house start to move and things like that."

"Oh--"

“That sounds more like a horror story.” Li Wanyan lay down next to Mo Xueyao—or rather, not completely, because her left hand was still supporting her upper body.

"No, it depends on how the story unfolds... If there's murder, it's a horror story; if it's a simple prank, or if there's some romantic love story, it's a fairy tale." Mo Xueyao thought of her 'Candy Diary' and felt that it might be the most suitable subject for a fairy tale. "Ah, I've got it! I know how to tell it! Let me try!"

"Okay, shall we start, Xiaoyao?"

"Ahem—" Mo Xueyao cleared her throat, letting the starlight fall on her face, and began to recount the rise of a cat.

The cat featured in this story is, of course, her pet cat, Crispy Candy…

……

Chapter Seventy-One: Mother, Mother.